


Where the Wild Things Aren't

by sage_theory (papersage)



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-02
Updated: 2014-09-02
Packaged: 2018-02-15 22:48:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2246217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/papersage/pseuds/sage_theory
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's a hellmouth for grown ups this time around</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where the Wild Things Aren't

Faith came up to Cleveland for the vampires and basically stayed for the free food. 

She showed up about three A.M. one night and followed the sweet little twang in her gut until she found vampires. And Xander staring at the business end of his own stake.

Faith started throwing punches. Bodies flew. 

She smiled all bright and happy and feeling half buzzed on the kill, "Ohio, man. At least you got snow here. So, I heard you needed a Slayer around these parts."

Xander rolled off of a dented metal trashcan and said, "Yes. And yes. Did I mention the 'yes' part of that?"

Faith just smirked all the more and gave him a too hard pat on the back.

And the Hulk looking vampire, with the ugliest game face Faith had yet seen (and that was including the ubervamps) said, "I thought the slayer was shorter, man, and blonde. I want me a blonde slayer. Guess I gotta settle for brunette."

He wolf whistled and the dance began, the dance of growling fang and flying fist. Faith staked him on the rebound and seeing this, his friends ran off. 

Faith offered the hand not holding her stake to Xander who sat on the ground, wiping off his eyepatch which had some gooey, unidentified substance on it from the trash. 

"Never thought, I'd say this, Harris, but you stink," Faith said. Xander took her hand and pulled himself up.

"Between stinky and dead, I'll take stinky," he said. He considered his eyepatch. "I'm so boiling this thing in bleach when we get home."

"We? What makes you think I'm comin' home with you? I just got here."

Xander smiled. "I know, but I think it sends the wrong message if you just go chasing the vampires. It says, I'm looking for an easy Slay, I'm just looking to stake you and leave. It screams insecurity. I say, make the vampires come to you. Make 'em work for it."

They laughed and traded news from various parts of the world concerning Slayers and vampires and all the other weirdness of their lives and managed to slay two more vampires on the way home. Xander threw his eyepatch on the counter and looked beneath the sink. He meant it about the bleach. 

Faith stuck her head into the fridge. 

"What? No diet soda? For real?" asked Faith, her head somewhere in between the shelves. 

"I'm a man. I drink the real thing," Xander said. She turned around and looked at him under her brows. "Okay. Andrew drank the last Diet Pepsi."

Faith laughed.

"Diesal it is then," Faith said, popping open a cherry coke. "So Andrew's holed up here too?"

"Yeah, well, he kind of had a giant love-on for the Immortal and since the Immortal is definitely of the Buffy-only persuasion, it wasn't working out for him. Plus, trying to read ancient demon scrolls with one eyes gives me migraines. We figured we'd play watchtower out here on the new Hellmouth. I guess you can take the boy outta the Hellmouth but you can't take the Hellmouth outta the boy."

Faith nodded and sat on the counter next to him. 

"You should get a new eye patch. Something camo maybe."

"Camo?"

"Yeah. Like desert camo."

"Because Cleveland is chock full of desert-y goodness and should I ever run across a vampire out there in the big wastelands of *Ohio* he won't be able to see my lack of an eye. Cunning."

Faith pretty much stayed after that, even though she'd only come there to help keep the Cult of Omoris from eating babies and taking over the world and whatever in the hell wacky vampire cults were doing these days.

At first, it was really really comfortable. Shades of Sunnydale, in the bad old days. Only with out the ever looming sense of doom and death and the big eyeless freaks and the crazy eye-poking preacher guy. Kinda nice, quieter than with all the wannabes that were in Buff's house the last time, and Andrew and Xander were cool. 

Then one night, Xander made the mistake of asking questions, personal questions. 

"So, I thought you and Principal Wood were – you know – together?" he asked, while they strolled down W. Broad St and tried to keep an eye out for the Curoukk demons which were apparently all gathering for some Hellmouthy goodness and were trying to feed in great numbers on male virgins. Angel and Buffy had passed along some intel that had it that the latest trend in the underworld was male virgins, because girl virgins were just so passe. Faith kinda understood why that would be, actually. 

Faith twirled her stake between her fingers. "His name's Robin, yo. His mom didn't name him 'Principal'. But, nah. We split. It was nice, but I always felt like I had something to prove to the guy, you know. Didn't like that he was always tryin' to teach me something. I mean, dude, I barely made it through sophomore year the first time. I'm a Slayer, not exactly *supposed* to be the brain trust or anything."

Xander nodded his head as if to agree. "Yeah, but who knows when the collected works of Tennyson might come in handy? Especially as a doorstop. Or a weapon. The pen may be mightier than the sword, but a thousand page tome can actually cause skull fractures. Proven fact."

She laughed a little and strolled onward. "So, you got anybody creepin' around Casa de la Harris?" 

"Nah. I figure that since I'm on the Hellmouth, the odds of a girl trying to use my blood to open an unholy seal of death on the first date are really high. So, I play it safe."

"You have cable porn, don't you?"

Xander nodded and pointed as if making a really important statement. "And I'm not ashamed of it. I'm a healthy redblooded American –"

"Who didn't share the wealth. Dude, what channel?"

"155. But it fritzes out sometimes and there's a lot of commercials. It makes seeing the infomercial for shake weights really weird. Just a warning."

Faith nodded. "You think you'll ever jump back in? I mean, I know that you and Anya were...tight."

Xander gives her the one eyed side glare. "We loved each other and tried to tear each other to pieces and she died before I could make it right. Tight's not the word."

"Oh. So?"

"Maybe one day. When I can get Willow to cast some kind of protection spell over me. She keeps saying I have to go it au naturel, but none of her dates have ever actually been evil. So I don't think she can relate."

Faith smiled at him and walked a little faster. Xander had a sneaking suspicion that it meant something, so he walked faster too and kept up. 

He was right. They got home that night and Faith seemed wound a little tighter than usual. After a good brawl she was hungry – meaning Xander could expect to be out of potato chips, cookies, soft drinks and any liquor by the end of the night – and wound up – meaning Xander could expect to see her coming in smelling like cigarettes and strange men just as he was getting up for work, but it never seemed directed at him. 

Then she was sitting on the counter, eating pretzels – because Xander hadn't gotten to go to the grocery store between trying to get his latest project at work on schedule and trying to thwart the minions of some vampire lord named Damien. And she looked a little more seductive and coy with the pretzels than was absolutely necessary. And that was saying a lot, because Faith could turn candy bars and popcicles into porn on the best of days. 

Xander sat writing down a grocery list and mentally calculating if he could hold off shopping until his check got deposited. He did the mental math about what he had in the accounts, and whether it was worth it yet to dip into savings. Buffy and Angel threw him a few bonuses where they could. He wondered if he could get a 'I'm playing host to a ravenous Slayer' stipend from them.

Faith slid off the counter and stood very close and said, "You know, you're like one of the only guys I've wanted to do more than once."

Xander froze in position and didn't even turn his head. "Oh, really? Does that mean I get to be in the Faith – wait a minute, do you *have* a last name? And how come I don't know it?"

Faith snorted, got so close their bodies touched and put her head on his shoulder, looking down at where he balanced his checkbook. "Hell if I know. I'll tell you if we ever get horizontal again."

Xander lifted his eyebrow. "So...we bump and *then* we trade information? That's not love, that's a fender bender."

"Well, your fender didn't seem to be doing any bendin' last time," she purred.

"Yeah, okay," he said, sounding far away and uncomfortable. Then he shook his head and looked down at his unbalanced checkbook. "When did *this* become adult swim?"

"Look, if you don't wanna tango, that's fine, Harris. No hard feelings. Plenty of fish in the Hellmouth."

Xander put his pen down. "I'm sure there are, but really, this particular fish doesn't have time to bite and go."

Faith slid behind him and bent over the counter and her boobs were almost falling out of her shirt. She whispered in his ear, "Hey, if time's a factor – I can make it *real* quick. What's the ish?"

Xander closed his eye and shook his head. "The *ish*, Faith, is that I'm tired and I'm barely keeping my life above water right now, and I'm trying to survive and fight evil – which I've been fighting since I was sixteen – and it just keeps coming back with minty freshness. I've loved two women in my life, and I've seen them both dead. I just don't have enough of myself *left* to just give away when it's convenient. Maybe you do, but hey, Slayers heal fast."

He took his checkbook and his pen and looked positively exhausted as he shuffled out of the kitchen. 

Faith stood there for a moment and then couldn't stand the silence in the house. 

She grabbed her coat and trolled the streets. She found some guy who's name she didn't know and didn't ask. He had a nice apartment and he even let her call him whatever name she liked. He didn't care. It was her kind of game. Find a guy, hone in on his thing, his kink, his wants. Suss them out and be that thing and get it on. No strings attached. Nothing attached. No names, no faces, just bodies and skin and sweat and nothing that would last longer than it took to get dressed again. 

She asked if she could use his shower. Half-drunk and two-thirds asleep he said okay.

Faith sat in his bathtub with the water scalding hot, trying to scrub herself and get warm again, because she felt so, so cold. She ran out of hot water and shivered when she dried off, got dressed, and left. She didn't even quite know what part of Cleveland she'd gotten to. It took her forever to work the buses to get home.

She didn't sleep with anymore random hookups after that. She told herself it was because Cleveland guys sucked – and not in the warm, delicious sense of the word either – and as soon as she got out of Cleveland she'd look up Robin or Spike or bullwhip guy and get back in the rhythm. She was just taking time off, no big. Everyone did that. Plus they still hadn't quite gotten that Damien character down for the count. No shame in focusing on the Slay. Hell, sometimes the Slay just felt better. Purer. Righter. 

It was thirty minutes before sunrise when she got in the door. Xander sat in his boxers and tee shirt, watching the news and eating Frosted Flakes. 

"Morning," he said. 

Faith grumbled back at him and wondered what kind of look he'd give her if she went straight for the bottle of Jameson at six fifteen in the morning. She settled on just a diet soda and a bag of barbeque potato chips.

Xander eyed her drink and said, "Breakfast of champions?"

"It's what all the cool Slayers are eating."

He went back to looking at the news. Faith felt like she wanted to say something. Tell him what she'd done. Not that she knew why. So she didn't. She got the rep for being kinda mouthy, and fair enough, she was. But she had this policy. Either don't say shit when you don't know what to say anyway, or only say shit when you don't care what happens. 

She didn't know what to shit to say, and she did care what happened. So she let it slide.

Xander washed out his bowl in the sink and put it in the dishwasher. "So, how'd last night go? You're in kinda early. What with the sun just *now* rising and all."

Faith shrugged. Thought of a convincing story in her head, one that wouldn't make him ask questions. She put on her happy voice and told him, "Yeah. Met this guy with a collection of handcuffs, like these really old antique ones and he had a huge –"

"Aaaaand it's nice to start the day with a big dose of TMI. Thank you, I'm gonna go take an extra long shower," he said. He was kind of smiling. "Hey, do me a favor. Tell Andrew that it's his turn to go shopping that the electricity bill is in the same envelope with the utility bill. He needs to drop them off today."

Faith saw the envelope that was in the napkin holder on the table with the letter from Willow and some scifi geek newsletter. For no good reason she reached out and took the envelope and opened it. 

She looked down. Electricity – two hundred and eighty dollars. Utilities – one hundred and five.

Damn. Seven hundred and eighty five dollars. Where was the money coming from?

"How much you make in a month?" she asked, looking down at the bills.

Xander laughed. "That's for me to know and you not to tell the IRS. I'm gonna be late. And hey – I got extra Hot Pockets this time. Just make sure you leave Andrew some, because he asked for them. I'm looking for the War of the Hot Pockets here, okay?"

Faith just nodded. Kept looking down at the envelope.

She realized she'd never paid a bill, never written a check, had a job. All her money was in a shoebox in her closet in wadded up twenties and tens and fives and ones that had been in her pocket or her bra. She didn't even know how much she had. It was just there when she needed extra booze or clothes. When Xander wasn't around to dole out money. Wasn't there to take his worn brown leather wallet out of his back pocket – like somebody's dad or something – and hand her twenty or thirty dollars.

Faith knew how to get money. Men. Easy. Not straight up selling it, but if you got a guy laid right you could bum a twenty here and there. You could shoot some pool and throw some dice. You could find ways to get it here and there if you needed it. If you weren't picky, if you didn't mind motels where even the magic fingers beds didn't work. 

But Xander had money. Real money. And Faith never wondered where it all came from before. Now she did.

All she knew was Xander did it, some how. Made it work. There were groceries and air conditioning and hot water and pizza and it was like magic. Poof. Somehow, Xander just made it happen. Went somewhere for eight to twelve hours and it worked out.

Faith couldn't even begin to do the math. She never realized how simple her life was. Not easy, but simple. Slay or die. Die or Slay. Not brainteaser or anything. Took a lot of force, but any kind of thinking happened on the QT. It happened quick and dirty and in her gut. Didn't require a lot of planning or strategizing. You just went out, you followed the feeling in the center of you and you fought and you Slayed and it made you feel good and buzzed and right. 

But Xander had all these other things that seemed like a whole other world, a whole other society. Taxes and bills and filling out forms and knowing numbers and addresses and information. He had people to answer to. He had to account for things. He had to know information, he had to think of things way, way ahead of time. All the time. 

Xander came back down twenty minutes later with still wet hair and a suit on. He said bye to her and rushed out. 

Andrew came downstairs two hours later, looking sleepy.

He yawned. "Hey, Faith. Kill anything last night?"

"Nothing much," she answered. "Hey, Andrew, where do these go?"

Andrew rubbed his eye with his sleeve that was so long it came down past his hand. He looked really, really little. And young. 

Andrew took the checks from her hand. Yawned again. "Oh, these. Yeah. I'll have to drop them off before work."

"Yeah, Xander said that. But where do they *go*?"

"The United Utilities place down on 3rd and Green, why?"

Faith got up from her stool. "Just wondered."

Xander came home at eight that night and Faith thought about the fact that he'd been at work before eight that morning. That was like twelve hours. And even on really long nights she usually only Slayed for six or seven hours. 

His hair had dried and his tie was pulled apart and he had stubble and grayish bags under his eyes. 

Faith remembered that she forgot to tell Andrew to go grocery shopping. 

"Did Andrew get groceries?" Xander asked.

Faith froze. She crossed her arms. 

"Uhh, no."

Xander looked like he was about to cry. "Faith I told you –"

"Hey, chill. I was gonna go do it for hi. I was just, uh, waitin' to see if you wanted anything before I went."

Then he let out a breath and leaned on the doorway between the living room and the kitchen and looked like his bones were going to melt and he was going to be a big gooey heap on the floor. 

"Oh, thank god," Xander said. He reached into his back pocket to pull out his wallet. 

Something in Faith sputtered and stalled like a nearly dead engine. She waved her hands and shook her head. "Hey, I got it covered. Take a nap, Harris. You look dead."

"No," Xander said, going towards the stairs. "The dead usually look better than this."

"So, anything?"

"Just the usual."

Faith went upstairs and pulled a hundred dollars in twenties out of her cash box and stuffed it into her bra. She walked down to the SuperShop and there was only one shopping cart left and she went into the very bright, florescent supermarket and felt really, really lost. Put her in a cemetery, put her on a Hellmouth, put her in all kinds of weird shit and she navigated it like a pro. Put her in a fucking supermarket and suddenly she felt like she'd entered another goddamn dimension. She didn't even know which part of the damn place to go to first. 

She thought about buying lots of candy and alcohol, but thought about how Andrew couldn't hold his liquor. Two shots of Jameson and that kid had to get put to bed. And Xander didn't really like chocolate to begin with. Neither did Andrew, either. Weirdos. Who the hell didn't like chocolate?

So Faith pulled out her cellphone and she didn't think too hard about the fact that Andrew had gotten the discount and Andrew bought it for her, gave it to her, paid for the minutes. She called Andrew and stood anxiously in front of the pasta aisle.

"Umm, what's the usual?" Faith asked. 

"The usual what?"

"I dunno. I'm at the grocery store and Xander said to get the usual. So what the hell's the usual?" 

Andrew snorted over the phone. "I dunno if I should help you. You ate my last Hot Pocket, missy."

"Look, you underdeveloped little creepazoid, just tell me what to get."

Twenty minutes later Andrew showed up in a tucked in polo shirt and khakis and his ID from work still hanging around his neck. He smiled at her. "Hello, Welcome to the grocery store. I'm Andrew – Tucker's brother – and I'll be your guide today. First, let us venture into aisle one, where we will find many staples for dietary consumption."

Faith rolled her eyes and followed him. "Okay, I'm lookin' at a lot of pasta. Fine, what do I get?"

Andrew stared at her. "What do you mean what do you get?"

"Nobody gave me a list. Xander just said 'the usual'. So what the hell's the usual?"

"Uhh, okay. Let's do a little mental exercise. Think about what you had for lunch."

"Uh, chili cheese fries, Mexican pizza, ice cream, Cheetos, popcorn, leftover casserole, Hot Pocket – sorry, man - a couple of snickers bars. Ooh, hey, can we get Snickers?"

Andrew squinted resentfully. "I hate your Slayer metabolism."

"Comes with the job, yo," Faith said, smirking. "So, what, we get more snickers?"

"Okay, let's try this *again*. What do you think you might want to eat tomorrow?"

"I dunno, whatever food's in the fridge."

Andrew clapped his hands together sharply and said, like he was speaking to a small child, "And how do you think the food gets in the fridge?" 

Faith responded with about the same amount of respect. "Somebody goes to the grocery store and puts it there?" 

"Good. Good. This is progress. Now if you buy and put it in the fridge then when you're hungry, that'll be what you have to eat."

"Oh goodie, can we sing the alphabet song next?" Faith asked, in her most stringently sarcastic voice. "Okay, then. Snickers. And Dos Equis, 'cause I could definitely use some of that. Oh, and hey, they got these little mini corn dogs –"

Andrew cut her off midsentence. "Woah. Hold up there. What about the rest of us?"

"I'll get you some," Faith told him, taking control of the cart. "You want Kit Kats, 'cause I've been cravin' those. Got those little wafer things."

Andrew suddenly looked tired. Like Xander looked tired. He stood in front of the cart. 

"Faith..."

"What?" she asked, giving the cart a little push. Andrew stayed in place and put his foot on the bottom of the cart. 

"Not that I don't love Kit Kats as much as the next guy, but at some point we have to have actual food."

"No shit, sherlock. Whaddya think I'm doing?"

Andrew shook his head. "Shopping for yourself. At some point we have to have food that has vitamins and minerals and all that other nutritional stuff. We're not like you, Faith. We can't just live off beer and candy. Some of us have to go to work and pay bills and act like adults."

"Excuse me?" Faith said, taking a stance and starting to gesture sharply. "You sayin' I'm immature or something. Look here, little man, you better step up off it."

Andrew rolled his eyes. "You wanna know why Xander turned you down?"

Faith looked stunned. "He told you about that?"

"No. I heard him talking to Willow. I'm not saying you're a bad person, Faith. I mean, I've killed. I went over to the dark side of the force, too." Andrew shifted his weight and played with his ID. "I know what it's like."

"Start talkin' about Darth Vader and I seriously *will* punch you."

"It's not like that. It's that you're...you're not civilized. You don't live in the real world."

Faith frowned, made a face like she'd smelled something bad. "Say what?"

"It's not your fault, you're a Slayer. You kinda have to be me Slayer, you Slayed and not think about stuff. And Buffy was special, she just kind of handled it better because she had Dawn and her mom and WIllow and everyone. Xander gets that. He's not complaining. He likes having you around."

"And you?"

"I'm still kinda bitter about the Hot Pockets," Andrew said, seriously. He took a deep breath. "But we're having a moment, so I think I can get past it. So. Start with the pasta. Xander really likes fettucine."

Faith nodded and scanned around until she found two boxes of pasta with the words fettucine on them. She threw them into the cart. "You know, in case he wants extra."

Andrew nodded sagely. "Does it bother you?"

"No, I like fettucine. It's cool."

"I mean Xander turning you down."

Faith shrugged. "It's no big. He's a soccer mom kinda guy, right? I mean, he used to have the big L for Buffy."

Andrew laughed. "It bothers you."

"Does not."

"Does too."

"Does not."

"It so does. Oh my god, it so does. You liiiiike him. You wanna kiiiiiss him," Andrew taunted.

Faith punched him in the arm. He said oww in a way that would make even little girls lose all respect for themselves, but Faith gave him credit because she'd been on the edge of using Slayer strength. It probably did hurt. And he stayed with her anyway. He walked her through the weird, too bright world of the supermarket with the cheesy 90's power ballads playing and occasional announcements of specials that made no sense. 

In the end, the kid did a decent job of making it make sense. It felt like a battle plan, kinda. Like, know what weapons you're gonna need for a week, what kind of time you're gonna have to fight with, and then get it all together and go pay for it. 

The cashier looked at her weird when the money came out of her bra to pay for it, but at least she had enough and they had food that looked like real adult food. Like, fettucine and vegetables and all kinds of shit that had nothing to do with beer and candy. Faith kind of felt proud of herself because the idea to get chicken and ground beef was totally her idea. Proteins like yeah, baby. She had this shit down. 

Andrew went to return some rented movies to the Redbox and Faith went home with groceries. She put them all on the counter and kind of wondered where everything was supposed to go.

Xander walked into the kitchen, looking like he'd just woken up. 

"Oh, hey. So, am I now the proud owner of my own case of beer or what?" he asked, smiling. He looked into one of the bags. 

Then he pawed through and pulled out things like lettuce and tomatoes and the package of fettucine and ground beef and a loaf of bread and cans of soup. He smiled and looked like he wanted to do a victory dance. 

"Hey, fettucine! Life is good." Xander smiled and looked very, very happy.

Faith smiled back. Winked. Started putting food up in the wrong places, but Xander let it stay there and suddenly the chip cabinet became the soup cabinet and all the vegetables went on the shelf in the fridge and alcohol went in the crisper instead of the other way around. 

And Faith pretty much took over grocery shopping after that and she made sure there was always fettucine. But also booze, because come on, booze was like a major food group or something. But more fettucine than booze. Most times. They had things they needed. They had dinners and lunches and breakfasts. She did okay. 

Then one day she got it into her head to cook. She was thinking about it, in the mid-Slayage mellow between fights and figured that she might as well do it once in her life. With the tingly high of having just bathed in the dust of three vampires, it felt like a brilliant idea. And she was tired of eating out or waiting for someone else to cook and she could just get the stuff when she went shopping and Xander would come in and be all impressed and Faith could act like it was nothing at all and he'd still be impressed. And that would be important. 

Not that it would be a regular thing, of course. She cooked for no man. But hey, everyone deserves a treat and Faith knew how the give and take worked. She got it. Sometimes, somebody does you a solid and you slip 'em a free drink or a gram or a quickie or you flash some tits at them, just to say 'thank you'. Faith knew her assets, knew how to work in trade. 

She even got on Andrew's computer – and he almost bitched himself to death over that – and looked up stuff. There was Googling involved. Faith finally let Andrew take over the navigating and she just made suggestions. He was kind of Watcher-y that way. It was better just to let him work his mojo and then use it how she wanted. 

Some kind of lasagna pizza casserole hybrid came up on some site. It was the only thing that Faith and Andrew could both agree on. 

So she did it. Bought the stuff, hid it from Xander, and about five o' clock, she started cooking. 

About six thirty, Faith kept peeking into the oven to see if it would start to look like lasagna or even anything in the lasagna family. 

Xander came home at seven and stopped in the doorway of the kitchen. Just as Faith was checking on the lasagna in the oven. It was bigger on one side than the other and the crust looked two shades too brown to be considered "golden". But it smelled good.

"I have got spectacular news, people!" Xander said. "Hey, what's that smell?"

"Uh, I think it was supposed to be pizza lasagna," Faith answered. "So what's the big news?"

"I got a date! That's right friends and Romans, you have lent me your ears and heard correctly. I have a date."

Faith blinked, put a smile on and asked. "A date? With who?"

"She works for the firm that's building the new office on 23rd and West. Oh, she is *gorgeous*. And not a demon!"

"How do you know she's not a demon?" asked Faith. 

"Let's see, walks in daylight, has a regular job, oh, and hasn't tried to sacrifice me or rip out my internal organs yet. I think we're talkin' a hundred percent genuine human here."

"Good on you, Harris," Faith managed to say.

The timer dinged. Faith took the lasagna out of the oven. Xander frowned. 

"You made dinner?" he asked, looking surprised and weirdly disappointed about something. 

"Hey, no big. I'll save you some. Go on, you gotta get ready, Harris," Faith told him. She smiled as big as she possibly could. He went up the stairs and she called out, "Too much eyeshadow makes you look easy."

He called back, over the bannister, "Promise?"

Two hours later she and Andrew vegged out on the couch with a quart of Ben and Jerry's between them, passing it back and forth as they flipped through channels. They tried the porn channel first, but they both actually got kind of bored with it, because it became more like one of those weird National Geographic specials than a porn and Faith said, "You know the real thing doesn't actually look like that, right?" 

And Andrew said, "Oh, I know. The real thing is way better."

Faith didn't know if he meant the girl or the two guys, but that made her respect him more and she liked him for it. She liked that he got what it was like when you were the second best and in someone's shadow. They traded hilarious bitchery about being Buffy's second and Tucker's brother and she apologized for all the hot pockets she ever stole. And she liked him. And she hoped he never died or anything. 

"It's not like he's that much to look at anyway," Andrew said, randomly. 

"Yeah, exactly. And eyepatches. What's with that? Who's supposed to find that sexy?" Faith replied. She grabbed the quart from Andrew. 

"God, I hate men," Andrew whined. "Wanna watch Thelma and Louise?"

Faith looked at the clock on the wall.

"Damn, it's already eleven. Doesn't he have to like, get up in the morning?" asked Faith. 

"He could be making fiery passionate love to some redheaded bimbo with big breasts and a coy, boyish figure who likes long walks on the beach. He could be doing it right now," Andrew answered, sound put out. Faith figured he was actually just jealous because he'd lost his best geek friend to a girl.

"Or his date could be an evil minion of hell," Faith suggested.

They sat in silence for a moment, they stared at the TV. They tried to pretend they could concentrate on the show with the dancing celebrities. Then they looked at each other. 

"Minion," they both said at the same time. 

They took Andrew's car and Faith insisted on driving even though she had a tendency to completely ignore stoplights and thought of merging lanes as a personal challenge. 

"Look, we're gonna keep this on the DL. He's not even gonna know we're here," said Faith. 

"Yeah. We're like...spies. Or private detectives. Like Angel Investigations. Ooh, ooh, we could be our own little firm. Like Andrew, Xander & Faith or something. AXF. I like it."

"Yo, I'm the Slayer, my name comes first. FAX."

"Fax? Really? Besides, My name comes first alphabetically," he protested.

"Shut up, shut up. There he is!" Faith said, pulling into the firelane in front of a restaurant and parking the car. 

"He's not going to hear us from across the street," Andrew grumbled. 

"Shut the hell up, man!" Faith repeated. She slapped him in the arm as she focused the binoculars. 

Faith stared at the woman who was laughing and touching Xander with soft touches. She growled, "You gotta be kiddin' me. I'm not believin' what I'm seein'."

"What? What? Is she an evil demon, a spawn of hell, do your Slayer senses detect her overwhelming evil aura?" asked Andrew, panicking and plastering his face to the window.

"She's wearing brown shoes with black pants!" Faith exclaimed, adjust the binoculars as Xander went farther away. "Skank."

"You know, maybe we shouldn't be spying on him like this. Maybe she's a really nice girl."

Faith was about to reply but then suddenly the woman stopped walking. They were in between two big buildings. She stopped laughing and pulled something out of her pocket and stuck Xander in the side with it, hard. His mouth went wide open and he collapsed.

The woman threw him over her shoulder and disappeared into the dark alley. 

"See! I told you!" Faith said, getting out of the car. "Total demon. See? I knew it. Xander would never go for that. She was *so* using magic to get him!"

Faith dragged Andrew by the sleeve across the street and into the alley. 

Xander laid on the ground, limp and giggling. The woman sprinkled a circle of bright red powder around him. 

"Sorry, honey," Faith said as she approached, stake at the ready, "You're just not his type."

The woman opened her hands. The ground came out from under Faith's feet and back of Faith's head made contact with the side of building. She was dizzy for a moment. The ground disappeared again. Faith was mid-air with an invisible hand around her throat. 

Andrew tried to sneak behind the woman to get to him. The woman struck him down where he stood. He laid face down. 

Faith concentrated on not panicking. She'd had this happen before. She could deal. And she heard Xander laughing like a crazy person. Black spots danced in front of her eyes. 

Then the ground came back, hard and rough. Xander swayed from side to side a little and Faith looked up. He staggered and smiled with a knife in his hand and blood all over and the woman laying face down. 

"My last evil date was better looking," he said. He tossed the knife on top of the woman's body. He looked to Faith and Andrew. "And thanks for spying on me."

Xander started to croon out a song. Andrew became fully conscious and they followed after him. Xander didn't remember where his car was so they took Andrew's and they pulled over three times to let him get sick. 

They got home and Andrew opened the door so Faith could carry Xander in, because he had lost the ability to stand up right or even really support his own body weight. Faith remembered when Wesley held her like that once, carried her to a bed when she and Angel and Angelus all took a swim in the deep end of the pool together, back in the day. She deposited him in a kitchen chair and surprisingly, he stayed sitting, although he started laughing hysterically. 

"Should've gone gay when I had the chance," he said. "Hey, Andrew, wanna be gay together!"

Andrew called out from the laundry room, "I'm saving myself for David Tennant!"

Faith made a confused face. Xander told her that it was some sci-fi TV star person that Andrew had the hots for. Faith nodded. 

"Eh, probably turn into a demon if I did," Xander said. He turned and took steps that were as steady as a toddler first learning to walk. He braced on the table. "So...Faithy. Just had to spy on me. Didn't know you liked to watch. Kinky."

"I was just lookin' out for you, Harris," Faith said. "In case you didn't notice, Little Miss Wicca just wanted you for your internal organs. You needed me."

"Because god knows I couldn't get along with out you," he said, sharp and hard and mean.

Faith snorted. "Hey, man. If you want me out, just say it. I got a lot of places I could be right now besides dragging your scraggly ass out of an alley."

"Oh, no, don't go," Xander answered. Nothing about his smile was kind or even happy. "Who will I get to spend my money and use all the hot water and leave towels on the floor and eat my food and sit around all day while Andrew and I go to work?"

"Fine. If that's how it is, no problem. I'm gone, Harris."

"Wait! You haven't tried to seduce me yet. I mean, I've paid for everything, so I'm supposed to get sex now, right? That's your day job, isn't it?" Xander asked, in a bright, sarcastic voice. 

Faith punched him. Hard enough to knock him right out of the chair and onto the floor. He laid there, checking his forehead for blood. 

"I'm gonna go Slay things. Unless you think *you* can do it, Eye-boy." 

Xander laid on the floor until Andrew came out of the laundry room. 

"I think it'll come out. You puked all over my favorite shirt," Andrew said. He looked on the floor, to see Xander with a start on a huge bruise and a big knot developing. "What happened to you?"

"Faith. If ya can't screw 'em, Slay 'em," he said. 

"That's not fair," Andrew answered, pulling on the sleeves of shirt he had on. "She made you dinner. She likes you, you know."

"And she likes to tag along on my dates."

"Hey, at least you had someone who cared enough to be jealous. It's more than some people have."

Andrew ran up the stairs to his room. Kind of like a teenage girl in a sitcom, but Xander was more concerned with standing up right than dealing with either of them at that moment. 

Xander pulled himself up on the counter and came face to face with Faith's casserole, covered with saran wrap. That meant something, a lot of something. But Xander couldn't think straight. He felt angry and heavy and tired. 

He literally crawled to his room, passed out, and woke up in the morning with his head hanging off the side of the bed and a terrible taste in his mouth. 

The time on the clock read half past noon. He groaned. 

"I am so fired," he said to himself. He padded towards the bathroom and pushed the door open. He saw Faith throwing all of her things into a bag. 

"I'll be out of your way in a second," she said, sourly. She harshly tossed a bottle of foundation and a hairbrush into the bag. 

"You going somewhere?" he asked, rubbing his eye. 

"Get the fuck away from me," Faith said, pushing past him. Xander's eye was half closed and he stood there for a moment, playing back what she'd said, in case he misunderstood it. 

Xander went to her room. 

"So, you're going away? When were you going to inform me?"

"It was your idea!" she yelled with a hoarse voice Then Xander took a closer look. Her eyes were puffy, red. The kind of puffy that came from crying. 

The clues started to come together in his head. He'd gone out on a date last night, and Faith had cried. Now there was packing. 

Okay, the clues were there, but not in a together sense of the word. More of a 'what the hell is going on' sense of the word. 

"You moving was my idea?"

"Don't worry, you can have your damn towels and your damn hot water."

Xander shook his head. Because otherwise the spinning would have made him fall over. "Woah. Woah. This is about hot water? Fine. Have all the hot water you want!"

Faith rolled her eyes, shook her head. "You're really fucking pathetic. You come in here and act like you can just make it better? Check the view screen, Harris. You can't just say sorry because you feel bad now."

"Am I in another dimension?" Xander asked. "Did I end up in some weird reality? Kristina and I went on a date and then she whipped out the mojo and then..."

It came back in the same bright, sudden way that lightning strikes the ground. The anger and the very, very bad words and Faith's casserole still on the table.

"Yeah. Just let me finish packing, okay."

Xander started waving his hands and stopped Faith from closing her suitcase. 

"Woah! Time out!" Xander said. Then he put his hands in front of his face, thinking Faith was probably going to hit him. Hard. In the face. Again. "I was under the influence!"

"Yo, the way I hear it, drunk men tell no lies. You meant what you said. Just 'fess up to it. Look, it's not workin' out for us. I just wish you had the decency to tell me that beforehand."

"If I'd wanted you to go, I would have told you to go," Xander told her, taking his tone down a couple of notches. "You want the truth, the whole truth? Well here I am, stone cold sober, telling it to you. Yes, you take up too much hot water, yes, you're messy, and yes, occasionally it wouldn't hurt for you to pitch in around here. But if I didn't want you here, you'd be gone."

Faith shook her head, almost laughed, and made some ultra-tough motion with her hand. "What, you waitin' for the sex? Fine. You want back rent? Let's go. What's the going price, about two hundred for an hour, two fifty for a half and half?"

Faith unbuttoned and unzipped the fly of her jeans. Xander grabbed her hands.

"Don't. Just don't, okay."

Faith redid her jeans. "I forgot, you don't stoop to my level. Since you're responsible-man now with your super cool job and how you're better than all the rest of us."

Xander frowned. "Faith, look at me."

Faith did. Which gave Xander the perfect opportunity to kiss her. And since it was the first thing that he could think to do and words were failing pathetically, he did it. He kissed her. He pressed his lips to hers and even put his hands on her arms to pull her in. He did that for as long as he could and then stopped.

Faith took a step back. And Xander could see it in her eyes. She was spinning, too.

"Woah. Hold up. Did *I* get dropped in bizarro land or something? You just turned me down and then you kissed me. You *sure* you're sober?"

"I want you here, Faith. Not because you're some neat household appliance to make my life easier. I want you here because you're...you. Because you remind me of what matters. If I wanted to, I could get lost in the world out there. In my job and money and bills. I forget that i'm not just here to play house and be career-guy. I fight evil. That's who I am, that's my real job. Not just my job. My real life. And if I build houses during the day, it's because I gotta eat. But *this* is who I am. And part of that is you. If I turned you down, it's because I want something more than sex. And that takes time. So give me time."

Faith plopped down on the bed. She ran a hand through her long hair. "So what now?"

"Long term or short term?"

"Short term, dude."

"Well, I was thinking that you could unpack and I could shave and I could try to save my job and then tonight we could eat casserole and kill vampires and...talk. I mean, we could save me from an evil witch and get pumped full of crazy-making sedative, but, dammit, we did that last night."

Faith smiled. "Sounds like a plan, yo."


End file.
